A commercial Proton rocket, topped with a Breeze M upper stage, lifted off from Kazakhstan Sunday and delivered an Intelsat communications satellite to orbit 23,000 miles from Earth.

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Mission success! ILS says the fourth burn of the Breeze M upper stage was completed as planned, and the Intelsat 23 satellite separated on time at 1807 GMT (2:07 p.m. EDT).

"Everything occurred as planned with ignition, shutdown and separation of the Proton's first three stages. Then the Breeze M upper stage with the satellite continued the mission, igniting four times, and then releasing the satellite into a near geostationary orbit," ILS said in a statement.

International Launch Services confirms the completion of the Breeze M's third burn and a successful jettison of the stage's auxiliary propellant tank.

The Breeze M and Intelsat 23 should now be in a transfer orbit with a low point of 308 miles, a high point of 23,079 miles, and an inclination of 46.2 degrees.

The upper stage will coast for 5 hours before igniting a fourth and final time to inject Intelsat 23 into a circular orbit more than 23,000 miles above Earth.

Separation of the Intelsat 23 satellite is scheduled for 1807 GMT (2:07 p.m. EDT).

The second burn of the Breeze M upper stage has been accomplished as planned. This firing was supposed to place the rocket in an initial transfer orbit with a low point of 197 miles, a high point of 3,106 miles, and an inclination of 48.6 degrees.

The next event is the Breeze M's third burn, which is programmed to last 18 minutes, 16 seconds, beginning at 1203 GMT (8:03 a.m. EDT). After the burn, the Breeze M will jettison an auxiliary propellant tank.

T+plus 18 minutes. The first burn of the Breeze M upper stage has ended successfully, placing the rocket and the payload in a parking orbit. Preflight plans called for the Breeze M to now be in a 112-mile-high orbit.

The next ignition of the Breeze M is scheduled for approximately 0945 GMT (5:45 a.m. EDT) for a burn lasting 18 minutes, 49 seconds.

T+plus 12 minutes, 30 seconds. Officials confirm successful shutdown of the Proton's third stage and separation of the Breeze M upper stage, which has ignited for the first of four burns.

This first burn should last about 4 minutes, placing the Breeze M and Intelsat 23 in a circular parking orbit 112 miles high with an inclination of 51.5 degrees.

T+plus 6 minutes. Proton's second stage has separated, and the third stage RD-0213 engine has begun its burn. The rocket's payload fairing has also been released now that the launcher is in the upper atmosphere.

T+plus 2 minutes, 20 seconds. The Proton's first stage has shut down and jettisoned, and the second stage engines are firing with a half-million pounds of thrust.

T+plus 70 seconds. The Proton rocket has passed the speed of sound and the phase of maximum aerodynamic pressure.

Liftoff of the Proton rocket with Intelsat 23, a communications satellite to serve enterprise, oil and gas, and data networking customers in the Americas, Europe and Africa.

T-minus 60 seconds.

T-minus 2 minutes. The countdown is being run by a master computer sequencer.

T-minus 5 minutes. The exact launch time is 0837:00 GMT (4:37:00 a.m. EDT). It will be 2:37 p.m. local time at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

T-minus 10 minutes. The Proton launcher on the pad weighs about 1.5 million pounds, and it will be powered into the sky by six first stage RD-276 engines producing more than 2 million pounds of thrust.

The Intelsat 23 satellite weighs 5,910 pounds at liftoff, and the Proton and Breeze M will inject the spacecraft directly in geostationary orbit instead of using a transfer orbit, which requires a satellite to use on-board propellant to reach its final orbit.

Intelsat 23 was transitioned to internal power a few minutes ago.

T-minus 12 minutes. There are rain showers and cloudy skies above the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, but these are not constraints to launch. The temperature is between 60 degrees and 65 degrees Fahrenheit, and surface winds are out of the northwest between 18 mph and 24 mph.

With 15 minutes left in the countdown, everything remains on schedule for launch at 0837 GMT (4:37 a.m. EDT). It will take nine-and-a-half hours to deploy Intelsat 23 in the proper orbit.

The 184-foot-tall Proton rocket is fully fueled for launch at 0837 GMT (4:37 a.m. EDT) with the Intelsat 23 communications satellite.

The protective gantry has been retracted from around the Proton rocket ahead of today's launch.

Today's mission will be the:

• 380th Proton rocket launch since 1965
• 75th International Launch Services Proton
• 59th Proton M using a Breeze M upper stage since 2001
• 8th Proton of 2012
• 5th Orbital Sciences satellite on ILS Proton
• 11th Intelsat satellite on ILS Proton

Returning to flight for the first time since a launch failure in August, Russia's Proton launcher and Breeze M upper stage will send an Intelsat communications satellite into space Sunday from Kazakhstan.

The mission will be the Proton's eighth launch of the year, but it's the launcher's first flight since Aug. 6, when a Breeze M upper stage misfired on the third of five burns to place Indonesian and Russian telecommunications satellites into orbit.

The failure prompted a top-level review of the Russian space program and forced the resignation of the head of Khrunichev, builder of the Proton and Breeze M rockets.

A technical review found the cause of the Aug. 6 failure was a loss of pressure in the Breeze M propulsion system, and officials ordered inspections and corrective actions on other Breeze M units before resuming launch operations.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev ordered Roscosmos - Russia's space agency - to find who was responsible for a series of setbacks, including the Breeze M mishap, the failure of a Russian Mars probe last year, and a string of other missteps.

Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin has pushed for a reorganization of the space agency and called for a leaner space industry in Russia to ensure reliability and competitiveness.

Sunday's launch is also critical for International Launch Services, the U.S.-based firm which oversees commercial Proton missions.

The Aug. 6 launch failure was not a flight involving ILS, but the company has a backlog of commercial satellites queued for liftoff.

Next up is Intelsat 23, a satellite designed to enhance capacity for enterprise, oil and gas, and data networking services.

The 5,910-pound satellite was built by Orbital Sciences Corp in Dulles, Va.

Liftoff is set for 0837 GMT (4:37 a.m. EDT) Sunday, or 2:37 p.m. local time, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The 184-foot-tall Proton rocket will boost Intelsat 23 and the Breeze M upper stage on a suborbital trajectoy, then the Breeze M will ignite four times to reach orbit and raise its altitude to 23,000 miles.

The upper stage should deploy Intelsat 23 in a circular 23,100-mile-high orbit over the equator at 1807 GMT (2:07 p.m. EDT) Sunday.

Intelsat 23 will replace Intelsat 707, an aging satellite launched in 1996. The new satellite carries 15 active Ku-band and 24 active C-band transponders, and from a position at 53 degrees west longitude in geostationary, the craft will reach customers in the Americas, the Caribbean, Western Europe, Africa, and islands in the Atlantic and Pacific.

Intelsat 23 is designed for a 15-year lifetime.

Check out video and photos of the Proton rocket rolling to the launch pad.